Toronto’s 50 Most Influential: #28, Ted Livingston

Ted Livingston

Founder and CEO, Kik

28His anonymous instant-messaging app, Kik, has a billion-dollar valuation and 300 million registered users. Most are still in high school or younger—40 per cent of U.S. teens use Kik—and they’re hooked: the average user logs 74 minutes a day, better than YouTube, Snapchat or Netflix. This year, Livingston added 50 new employees to an existing 100. In April, they launched a bot platform with 150 interactive AI tools, some of which can talk, take orders at a café or play a game with you.

Up next:

Monetizing the chat bots and launching new features to differentiate Kik from competitors like WhatsApp.